Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed and sent this Monday a bill that allows Sweden’s membership in NATO to be voted on in Parliament. The president thus ends a year and a half of uncertainty for Stockholm, which had already exhausted all diplomatic channels to try to convince Ankara to give it the green light to enter the Alliance.
“The protocol for Sweden’s accession to NATO was signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on October 23, 2023 and sent to the Grand National Assembly,” said the presidency’s communications directorate, in a publication on the social network The bill will first go through a parliamentary committee before being voted on in the chamber, although the date of both processes is still unknown. Erdogan’s party, the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), has the parliamentary majority along with three other allied far-right and Islamist parties. These smaller formations have been against Sweden’s membership in NATO, but Erdogan is expected to obtain a majority of votes in favor with the support of opposition parties. Sweden, for its part, has welcomed the measure, which puts it on the path to entry into the Alliance. “I am glad to know that Turkish President Erdogan has delivered the ratification documents to the Turkish Parliament,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in a tweet. He added: “It is now up to Parliament to deal with the issue. We hope to become members of NATO.”
Erdogan’s move comes after months of tug-of-war with Sweden, the United States and NATO to obtain certain concessions in exchange for giving the green light to Stockholm’s entry. At first, when the Nordic nation requested membership after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Turkey refused along with Hungary, accusing Sweden of protecting Kurdish exiles that Ankara considers terrorists. For its part, Stockholm took some measures to please Ankara, such as lifting a ban on arms sales to Turkey or modifying its terrorism law. In parallel, Turkey linked Sweden’s membership to concessions by other members of the Alliance and asked the United States to give in on the sale of F-16 fighter jets. In April this year, Erdogan gave the green light for Finland to join the Alliance but left Sweden waiting. Shortly after, a series of protests in which copies of the Koran were burned in Sweden angered Erdogan and the Islamist parties in Parliament, which organized mass protests in several cities in the country.
After pressure from NATO and its members, Erdogan finally relented in June and announced that he would ratify Sweden’s entry, but he left the hemicycle vote up in the air and the Turkish Parliament closed for the summer season.
Earlier this month, coinciding with the resumption of parliamentary activity, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Turkey to ratify Sweden’s membership. “Many allies would like to see rapid progress on this ratification,” Stoltenberg said after a meeting of defense ministers in Brussels. “Sweden has delivered what it promised and now we need ratification of its membership.”
